“RISEN WITH CHRIST”
Easter Reflections
Sunday, 16th April 2017.
Easter Octave
EASTER SUNDAY
Acts 10: 34, 37-43
Ps 118: 1-2,15-17,22-24
Col 3: 1-4 or 1Cor 5: 6-8
Jn 20: 1-9
ALLELUIA! JESUS IS RISEN INDEED!
Lent is over and it is now time to celebrate the great joy of Easter! The World rejoices for Christ’s triumph over sin and death. God, in His perfect wisdom and love, took sin and the consequence of sin (death) and used them as the means of the salvation of the world. By allowing the sins of the world to persecute Him and crucify Him, and then, by turning that suffering and death into the very means of salvation. Jesus destroyed sin by destroying the consequences of sin which is death. Death loses in the Resurrection! Jesus’ Resurrection takes away the effects of all sin for those who cling to Him.
If the brutal Crucifixion of Jesus, the Son of God, can turn out to be the greatest event in all of human history, then your personal suffering, your burden, or even your sin can very much become a source of great joy as long as you let God transform it into part of His Resurrection!
Easter means that nothing can keep us from the joy that God wants to give us. Nothing can steal that joy away. Know that God wants you to experience the joy of Easter in your life. Let Him fill you with hope and with the joy that only the Resurrection can bring. God wants Easter to begin now in our lives!
In the Gospel, Peter’s thoughts, perhaps churned with regret for having failed Jesus. He had said that he would die for him, but ran away. Now Christ is Alive, but there is no condemnation. Jesus has reconciled us to himself, we are seated with him at God’s right hand. We are free from the law of sin and death. We are forgiven. The words we hear today from Peter’s speech as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles vibrate with all the joy, the power and the conviction that the Jesus whom we witnessed preaching and healing, whom we saw crucified, we have seen now – alive!
Pope Francis says “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” This life-changing encounter with the risen Lord ought not to be thought of as the privilege of the few, but an invitation to all. All Christians are invited to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; On this Easter Day, let us be bold in asking for this renewed encounter. Let us desire to join with the many who have not seen, but have believed, because they have encountered him. Let us be witnesses of the Resurrection.
Prayer: Lord, Help me to let you transform every cross and burden in my life into joy. Lord, may Your joy fill my life and be my strength in all things. Jesus, I trust in You.Amen.
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